The Atlantis Night Club - Nags Head, North Carolina

It was a differnt time.

Dare-ing to go wild at Atlantis. The first summer I was 18 and could legally go to that legendary Nags Head nightclub, I was busing tables at the Dareolina Cove restaurant in southern Nags Head, before I graduated to the Seafare the next summer. I’d get off work at Dareolina about 10 pm, grab a cold bottle of Bud from the work cooler, and get in my car, headed down the Beach Road for Atlantis. I’d crack open the Bud, fire up a Marlboro, crank up classic rock on K-94 and ride that magical Beach Road, through the then-desolate Epstein tract before making the lights of the Seafare and seeing their workers climbing in their cars, many of them headed to Atlantis, too. Once there, I’d flash my locals card and trade wisecracks with big cool Collis as he checked me in at the door. Inside was a swirling heaven for hedonists of pretty women and flashing dance-floor lights, a smoky oceanfront pit of beer-soaked floors and wall-thumping music. We restaurant workers bought each other beers, yelling and laughing to be heard above the blaring rock band on the stage, meeting tourist girls in the process. Many of us restaurant workers were still in our work clothes, the Seafare guys cool in their white tux shirts and suspenders. I thought the one edge I had was that my Dareolina work shirt was a pirate smock with an open collar where I could sport my shark’s tooth necklace. We all had a lot to learn. But the learning, Banks style, was damn-sure fun.

John Riley - Outer Banks Author

Atlantis History and Links

Mike McQuillis was a former Navy Seal turned entrepreneur. He opened The Atlantis Night Club in Nags

The Basics

The Atlantis debuted the summer of 1978.
Mike McQuillis was the owner and a former Navy Seal.
The building, owned by Virginia Beach businessman Ed Ruffin.
First opened in 1970 as a skating rink. But by the summer of 1971, the rink was gone, replaced by the Rain Dancer nightclub.
Paul Shaver and John Lancaster, leased the building from Ruffin, In the summer of '74, the Oz became part of the Nags Head club scene.
McQuillis left the nightclub business in 1989. But the Atlantis arose again the next summer under the management of Doug Kibler, who lasted three seasons.
For the last two years, Jerry Dallas of Kitty Hawk leased the property. He was able to snare such up-and-coming groups as Everything and Egypt, and that little old band from Charlottesville that has sold about 3 million CDs: the Dave Matthews Band.